ENVIRONMENT : New York City Seeks to Filter Out Controversy Over Water

Residents used to call it the “champagne of municipal water.” The mineral-rich water that flowed unfiltered from reservoirs in Upstate New York won national taste tests and, at one point, even was bottled and sold across the United States.

Today, New York City tap water is flowing into hard times. Development on land near the city’s reservoirs has led to increasing amounts of pollution entering the water supply. And now city officials are locked in a battle with federal and state regulators over how best to protect the fabled reservoir system--the largest unfiltered system in the nation.

Federal officials say the city must begin to chemically filter all its water by 1996 unless it can come up with a better plan. City officials have agreed to filter the water in the city’s Croton reservoir in suburban Westchester County, but they contend that the most effective method to protect other major reservoirs would be to buy 80,000 acres of land in the Catskills and Delaware Valley regions where they are located.

“Our plan is concentrating on pollution prevention,” said Marilyn Gelber, commissioner of New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection, the agency responsible for ensuring water quality.

The federal government has given New York until June 30 to buy the first 10,000 acres of land or face filtration. But the city has run into strong opposition and delaying tactics--including a lawsuit--from the reservoir communities, which contend that New York City will strangle their local economies by imposing stringent land-use laws if a filtration plant is not built.

The problem from New York City’s point of view: Officials estimate that building filtration plants will cost $8 billion versus an estimated $2 billion for the land purchases.

But state officials are not looking favorably on New York City’s water woes. In March, the state environmental agency proposed giving reservoir towns 60 days to review all land purchases by the city in the region, as well as the right to appeal all purchases to state authorities.

City officials say the plan was tantamount to forcing filtration because it would cause massive delays in purchasing land. The proposal has yet to be approved by New York Gov. George Pataki, who has the final say.

New York City’s 2,000-square-mile reservoir system was built over a 100-year period ending in the 1960s. City and state officials often used the power of eminent domain to move numerous residents, towns and even graveyards. As a result, many in the region nurse a sense of grievance toward their populous neighbor.

The reservoir towns have let it be known they are willing to resolve the battle with New York City--for a price. They want several hundred million dollars in economic development funds and guaranteed spending on water-related improvements, such as upgraded sewage treatment plants. New York City officials made a counteroffer worth $165 million.

Some say New York City’s plan is inadequate. Development during the 1980s in the reservoir region has led to an increased amount of sewage, road runoff and other pollutants. In the summer of 1993, residents of several city neighborhoods had to boil their water after E. coli bacteria was found.

AIDS advocacy groups are urging immune-deficient patients not to drink municipal water, saying they fear the presence of cryptosporidium, the microorganism that appeared in Milwaukee’s water system in 1993 and caused more than 100 deaths. Compounding worries, several employees of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection earlier this year alleged that department managers ordered them not to test water that appeared contaminated.

Daniel Okun, chairman of the 1993 panel convened by the Environmental Protection Agency to study the city’s water supply, says too much development has already occurred for the city’s land conservation plan to work.

But city officials counter that contamination incidents have occurred in chemically filtered water systems--like Milwaukee’s.